Mount Goddard area backpacking photos

Photographs from backpacking trips to the Chocolate Lakes (1969) and to Enchanted Gorge (1977) in the Mt. Goddard quadrangle of California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

Place identifications are based on map-assisted reconstruction. Please let me know of needed corrections. The pictures in each set are in the order they were taken.

People in the photos are blurred or rendered as silhouettes.

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Chocolate Lakes

This loop hike apparently combined two of the hikes described in Sierra South. We started at South Lake and visited the Chocolate Lakes and Treasure Lakes. Between the two sets of lakes we passed Long Lake and then traveled cross-country to traverse a mountain pass that, judging by a topo map, would be to the south of Hurd Peak, on the other side of which is the highest Treasure Lake. We had some laughs during the otherwise steep and difficult pass ascent because according to the book we were following a "faint fisherman's trail" that was so nonexistent we had to wonder which one was being described as faint, the trail or the fisherman. I either got no pictures of Treasure Lakes (unlikely), or else they were slides which haven't yet been located.

The first or second Chocolate Lake, with Chocolate Peak rising to the right.	Most likely the third Chocolate Lake. If so, we are on the lower slope of Chocolate Peak, which rises to our right. Trail goes over the ridge at end of the lake and down to Ruwau Lake.	From south end of Long Lake.	Gendarme Peak, identified by comparing it to the photo in Sierra South page 116 and a topo map. Off to the right are Jigsaw Pass, Aperture Peak, and Mt. Agassiz.

Enchanted Gorge

Enchanted Gorge is in a remote interior part of Kings Canyon National Park south of the Goddard Divide, west of the Black Divide, and a long way from trailheads on both sides of the Sierras, but closer to the east side.

My best guess is that we started at South Lake, crossed Bishop Pass, Dusy Basin, Little Pete Meadow, followed the John Muir Trail west to Helen Lake, and from there diverted south to Ionian Basin and Chasm Lake. We followed Enchanted Gorge down 7 miles to the bottom of Ragged Spur, up Goddard Creek valley, back around to Ionian Basin, and retraced our steps to South Lake.

With only that guessed route to rely on, identifying the subjects of these photos is proving difficult, but might eventually be accomplished.

I might have misidentified Chasm Lake or identified more than one lake as Chasm Lake. We spent a night at one lake of several in the area that are known only by numbers corresponding to their elevations.

There are rocks everywhere in the Sierras, of course, but in the high altitudes of this region there are rocks, rocks, more rocks, and in many places nothing but rocks. There is more vegetation in the lower elevations of the Gorge, and at the bottom there lives a rattlesnake who does not appreciate people walking past its sunning rock.

Is this Bishop Pass?	This peak should be easily identifiable by its shape, but so far I haven't been able to find it. Except here. There it is!	Over this pass lies Chasm Lake.	Over the pass, descending to Chasm Lake.

Looking southwest across Chasm Lake(?) at Scylla (center) and The Three Sirens (closer, to right of it). Enchanted Gorge descends from the left end of the lake, and the route of our trip encircled those mountains, climbing back up the canyon visible rearward on the far right. The ridge up to the left from the left end of the lake should lead to Charybdis.	Tent pitched in a desolate landscape. The weather was cold and threatening, but I don't remember it raining much.	When lightning seems imminent, it is important to set up your tent in the middle of a wide open area. NOT!

When lightning seems imminent, it is important to protect your tent by standing nearby to act as a lightning rod. NOT!	Chasm Lake or a lake that I have misidentified as it.	Chasm Lake?	Same desolate campsite from another angle.
Getting ready for a day of descent down Enchanted Gorge.	This is Chasm Lake, for certain! Getting ready to go over the brink and down Enchanted Gorge.	In Enchanted Gorge, during 7 miles of descent, much of it is talus such as shown here.	Looking up the canyon. Scylla, left peak, and The Three Sirens to right of it.